If you have ever seen Stanley Kubrick's film classic, "Clockwork Orange" in its entirety, than you are undoubtedly familiar with the infamous ménage à trois scene between its anti-hero Alex and two young women, filmed in fast motion. Throughout its length, a synthesized version of Gioachino Rossini's "William Tell Overture" is heard as an accompaniment to its frenetic pace.

Or perhaps you recall the opening credits of Kubrick's "The Shining," a tracking helicopter shot with the ancient "Dies Irae" theme over it, played ominously on a synthesizer.

If so, you have been treated to the musical genius of Wendy Carlos, the first transgender person to win a Grammy.

Carlos was born on November 14,1939, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. And like many of us, she experienced her first inklings of being born into the wrong body, early in life.

“My awareness of [being a little girl] happens to be one of my first memories – when I was about five or six and didn’t even know there was a real difference between boys and girls… I remember being convinced I was a little girl,  much preferring long hair and girls’ clothes, and not knowing why my parents didn’t see it clearly."

“I didn’t understand why they insisted on treating me like a little boy."

Carlos' childhood and adolescence were fraught with bullying and fear, as she desperately tried to "fit in."

"I remember cradling my schoolbooks in my arms and getting teased about it, so I learned to balance the books on my hip, the way boys are supposed to."

"Later on, in high school, the problem reached a peak. I was feared, because the kids knew I didn't go to school dances, and was completely stigmatized."

"They started using terms like fairy and pansy."

Carlos eventually attended Brown University where she pursued "a hybrid major in music and physics...earned an M.A. in music composition at Columbia University, studying with pioneers Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky at the first electronic music center in the U.S.A. Upon graduation, Carlos worked as a recording engineer and befriended Robert Moog..."

Carlos' work with Moog was critical to the synthesizer's development as a viable musical instrument. Something readily acknowledged by Moog himself.

"[Wendy] used techniques that had been available for years, but used them better."

Even as Carlos' reputation grew, however, so did her inner turmoil.

"I had become extremely despondent, and the idea of suicide was becoming stronger and stronger in me. There was a period...when I was daily taking a razor to my wrists and wondering..."

"I finally read a book by Dr. Harry Benjamin called The Transsexual Phenomenon. I was still in bad shape personally, still feeling suicidal."

"I realized from the book that transsexualism was fairly rare but that at least there were others like me. It gave me a little more courage to accept myself and stop suppressing my feelings, and indeed, it provided an explanation for all the alienated feelings I'd had since my earliest memories."

"So at some point in the fall of 11967, I summonsed the courage to call the Benjamin Foundation and make an appointment."

Carlos' initial treatment came in the form of hormone replacement therapy.

"By early 1968, the doctors began to prescribe estrogen, progesterone and pituitary hormones as a possible way of 'curing' me of the syndrome."

"I took them and the result I was peaceful and relaxed for the first time in my life, as far as I can remember."

Even after she started upon HRT, Carlos and her doctors were unsure if she would ever undergo surgical reassignment.

"I thought I had to come up with physical proof. But then I realized the proof was within myself. The only evidence I had was the history of my feelings."

"Specifically, though, the realization was that I felt myself to be a woman whenever I saw a woman of similar build or looks [to me]. It had created a psychic pain within me that stopped me from being able to think or function in any fashion for very long periods. The overwhelming need I had was to resolve the conflict and become the person I had to be."

In this same time period, Carlos and her longtime co-creater Rachel Elkind, produced their first record album, "Switched On Bach." A synthesized reimagining of selections from the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. The album was a monster success, winning three Grammy Awards in 1970, and eventually selling over 1,000,000 copies.

This was soon followed in 1969, by "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer," yet another collaboration between Carlos and Elkind. It went on to be nominated for two Grammy Awards. It ultimately sold over 200,000 units.

Yet, despite her burgeoning musical stardom, Carlos had to hide her gender transition.

"I began living permanently as a woman in the middle of May 1969, nearly three and a half years before the operation. After that, I made only a few appearances as a male for the sake of my business..."

It was in 1971 that Elkind convinced Stanley Kubrick to utilize synthesized music for this upcoming film, "Clockwork Orange." The subsequent soundtrack provided by Carlos and Elkind received rave reviews. One such came from NEW YORK TIMES music critic, Dan Heckman in 1972.

"As sheer music it is a giant step past the banalities of most contemporary film tracks..."

In the same year came Carlos' gender affirming surgery. A life-changing event that Carlos considered somewhat anti-climatic.

"...the operation, though it's the thing that may be the most important in the public's mind, is really the least important, or the least interesting thing to me. By that time [of having the surgery] you have usually made the adjustment and you are living in your new role. Certainly I was. I had hormones in my body. My secondary characteristics had been altered. The operation was just to make the genitals match."

Even after her surgery, Carlos kept her transition secret with the help of her friend Elkind. For several years, Elkind would interact on Carlos' behalf on phone calls by telling the caller that Carlos (who they thought was male) was out of town. It was a secret that Carlos even kept from her record company employer, Columbia Records. She even went as far as pasting on fake sideburns in the few public appearances she made.

Carlos' self-imposed exile stifled her music career. Even though she would eventually collaborate again with Kubrick on "The Shining" soundtrack, and also produce most of the soundtrack for Disney's "Tron" in 1982, she essentially dropped out of public sight until she came out as transgender with her interview in the May 1979, issue of PLAYBOY. That interview provides most of Carlos' quotes used in this post.

Since the 1980s, Carlos has mostly continued her electronic musical contributions through both recordings and technological innovation. In April 2005, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Electro Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) for her contributions to electronic music.

Unfortunately, due to her dislike of the MP3 format, most of Carlos' musical catalog isn't available on such streaming platforms as Spotify or Pandora. If you want to hear this brilliant trans woman's music, you will have to find copies in traditional physical formats.

As of this writing, Carlos is still with us, but still reclusive and out of the spotlight. She has given no interviews in recent years and through her own website, she has been very critical of an unauthorized biography of her.

She may be a reluctant trans icon, but she is an icon nonetheless.

--- Anni